Mark woke up to a view of the planet Norsvund’ka. It was a lush-looking planet with a lot of greens and blues, much like every other planet. What made this planet unique was that it had a ring around it. Not a normal ring made of ice and rocks, like Saturn's. No, this was a manufactured ring with several ships travelling about.

Mark guessed the ring was like a massive space station that encircled the entire planet.

It was actually quite a beautiful sight, although he snapped out of his reverie when the Federation embassy floated between the ship and the planet. With everything that had gone on at Braga, Mark had completely forgotten that they had already built an orbital embassy for the Norn.

Cricket reminded him that the embassy was already operational. “It’s been in your daily reports for more than a secton now.”

Mark got out of bed and proceeded to his office for coffee and the daily reports. Nothing new to report, short of the little ship appearing out by Rift 13 again and still not responding to any hails. It wasn’t harming anyone, and it followed the same path each time they detected it. Maybe some sort of unmanned patrol craft? Why did it need to patrol, and to whom did it belong?

That was something they would need to investigate. As long as it stayed on course, there was no rush and could wait.

As he finished his reports, he looked back and paid specific attention to the report from the Norsvund’ka embassy. The numbers were lower than he expected for being operational for more than a secton, so he’d have to inquire into that. He suspected it was just because the Norn were wary of newcomers.

With his daily reports finished, he proceeded out to the common room. Someone was usually up making breakfast by the time he finished his reports, but if not, then he would take it upon himself to get breakfast started.

Rounding the corner to the eatery, Mark found Luna and Ra’ki, but they weren’t making breakfast. Instead, Ra’ki was sitting on top of the counter with her legs in the air and Luna’s head was between her thighs.

Seeing the erotic sight before him, he didn’t want to interrupt. He walked as silently as possible up to the counter. It was quite easy to do with the background hum of the life support system that you didn’t really even notice after a short while.

Once he got close, he made his presence known by asking, “Do you two need a hand with anything?”

Without looking at Mark or breaking contact with Ra’ki’s pussy, Luna pushed the lizard girl further onto the counter and then crawled up on the counter herself.

In that position, Luna’s pussy was face high for Mark.

Taking that as an invitation, he moved forward, leaned in and kissed her heart tattoo and perfect ass before spreading her puffy pussy lips, exposing her soaked pink slit. He happily licked deep to extract sweet nectar from the Silican beauty.

It surprised Mark when she came so quickly. Once her orgasm subsided, she climbed off the counter, leaving her ass pointed to Mark and her upper body still on the counter as she attended to Ra’ki’s sex.

Mark undid his pants and let them fall around his feet as he rubbed his cock up and down Luna’s slit for lubrication before sliding deep inside the tall Silican beauty.

Luna groaned at the impalement, closing her eyes and biting her bottom lip as she enjoyed the sensations of Mark’s cock as it grew to fill her cunt; the feeling of being fucked so deeply was driving the Silican beauty wild.

With her pussy no longer being attended to, Ra’ki took Luna’s hand, formed it into a fist and then guided it inside. Luna then snapped out of her reverie as she could feel Ra’ki squeezing her hand and wrist as it worked inside the yellow-skinned sexpot.

Soon Luna took over and began fisting deep into Ra’ki as Mark continued to pound her pussy. The sight and sound of Ra’ki getting fisted, keeping Mark’s cock as hard as a rock.

It didn’t take long for Mark to reach the point of no return as he thrust as deep inside Luna as he could and just held her hips as his cock twitched, unleashing its load deep inside. Prompting Luna’s second orgasm and starting Ra’ki’s orgasm from the furious fisting she was experiencing.

During their fun, Selena had come out of her room and was sitting at a nearby table behind Mark. She simply smiled and said, “What do I need to do to get on breakfast duty? That looks like fun!”

Luna laughed. “You’re a bit young for this part, but you’re welcome to help with breakfast anytime!”

Selena simply licked her lips as Mark pulled out of Luna, allowing a dollop of cum to leak out and drop to the floor. Selena simply grabbed some wipes from the kitchen dispenser and handed them to the trio. “Clean up! We put food on this counter, you know! Just so you know, I have had sex before!”

The three adults laughed as they climbed off the counter, cleaned themselves up, put on their clothes, and then wiped down the countertop.

A centon later, the others had emerged from their rooms. Annabelle was surprised that breakfast hadn’t been made, as she asked, “Where’s breakfast?”

Selena laughed and pointed to the cum splatter on the floor. “Mark made some batter, but Luna’s keeping it all to herself. While Mark did that, Luna was giving Ra’ki a hand, but there’s nothing to show for it. The worst thing, though, is that they wouldn’t let me help with breakfast! I think they need to start over.”

Annabelle caught on to the innuendo as she walked up to Luna. As she slipped her hand down the front of Luna’s pants,

Luna closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. After some obvious rubbing, Luna was breathing heavily as Annabelle withdrew her hand, revealing her cum-coated fingers which she licked clean.

“Mmmm, the best batter!”

Everyone laughed as they made French toast, since it was the fastest and easiest meal to make. They even let Selena run one griddle.

In the middle of breakfast, though, Cricket announced. “The Norn are requesting permission to land.”

Mark said, “Permission granted! We’ll meet them down in the starboard landing bay.”

Everyone stuffed the rest of their breakfast into their mouths and deposited their plates, cutlery and glasses into the recycling bin as they left to meet the Norn.

They hastily made their way down to level 3 and then to the starboard landing pod, realizing they’d never actually checked out the starboard bay. It was definitely a flex space. The front part had what looked like guest rooms or possibly holding cells, and then it was just a wide-open landing bay. Apart from the upgraded shuttle that Cricket had redesigned.

Two grey flying saucers entered the landing pod and touched down in front of the group. The Norn saucers were considerably bigger than the Federation shuttles. That design seemed archaic, but was likely very advanced.

One segment of the saucer opened down, creating a ramp into the ship. The interior seemed brightly lit, but it looked a bit confining. Anyone taller than 5-foot would definitely have to duck their heads inside the craft.

Ambassador Junga appeared at the top of the ramp, with little clearance above his head.

Each ship carried eight people, so it was a fair-sized group that had arrived unexpectedly. The passengers from each of the ships gathered behind Junga in front of the impromptu greeting party.

Junga stepped forward to greet Mark. Greeting each other with a simple nod of their heads. The Ambassador then introduced everyone else. With him were the fifteen elected eminences, representing each of the four continents on the planet and the eleven sections of the ring.

The other two people were their pilots, and they didn’t introduce either of them. Similar to humans, the Norn skin tones were all different shades of grey; none of them were taller than 5-foot and they all had oblong, slanted black eyes and a small mouth. Their noses were merely a slight bump on their faces with slits. Nine of the fifteen elected eminences were female.

It was the first time they had ever seen Norn females. Their bodies were quite similar to the males, though the females had small breasts, slightly pronounced hips, and their asses were a bit more rounded. The belts they wore made the loose toga-like sheets more form-fitting. Except for two females who had larger breasts and the fact that all the females wore cosmetics, it would be tough to tell the difference between males and females with just a passing glance. Fortunately, they all wore sashes which contained their region or section and their names.

Mark welcomed them to the Galatea and then introduced everyone who was there, including Maren, Gyges, and Athena.

Since it was a spur-of-the-moment event, Mark was about to ask if they would like to meet in the boardroom, then realized they might be hungry. “With your unexpected arrival, I admit I’m unprepared. Would you like to sit down and talk in our boardroom? Are you hungry? We just finished breakfast, but we could always fix you something as well.”

It seemed like none of the Norn were going to take the lead in speaking. Odd, considering they were all politicians, and they were the ones who had instigated the visit.

Junga shook his head and took the lead. “We do not require nourishment. Thank you for the offer. Our apologies for the unexpected visit. We noticed you arrived last night, but when we contacted you, we were informed you were unavailable. Since we haven’t talked recently, we were unsure of your plans. We wanted to speak with you before you interfaced with our people.”

Mark chuckled. “That’s one problem with the hyperspace gates. Travelling doesn’t take long enough. We went to sleep orbiting Braga, and we woke up here.”

Eminence Soriya chuckled as the rest of her cohorts looked at her, her skin tone darkening a bit with embarrassment. She explained, “Our apologies. We had not considered that a self-piloted ship would travel while the passengers sleep.”

Mark nodded, “I guess we could also actually tell you we are currently sleeping.”

Cricket then popped into existence. “It’s my fault, actually. Upon arriving, we actually stayed out near the hyperspace gate during most of the crew’s sleep. I only moved closer to the planet when Mark woke up. I thought it would be nice for him to wake up to a lovely view of the planet. He wakes up way earlier than everyone else.”

Mark dismissed her apology, “Thanks Cricket, it was a nice thought. I appreciated the spectacular view while I was going through my morning routine.” Mark then clued in to something they had said as he looked at the Norn. “Wait! You don’t want us to interact with your people?”

The Norn contingent all looked down and avoided eye contact.

Seeming to be at an impasse, with no one stepping forward as the definitive leader to answer his question.

To move the awkward conversation along, Junga looked around. “Not at all. Your embassy just became operational a few days ago and we’ve already done an announcement. I’m not sure if anyone has visited your embassy yet, besides the media that accompanied us.”

Mark interjected with some statistics, “I’m not sure how many were in your original contingent, but eighty-four people have visited the embassy to date.”

Junga smiled. “Good! I’m sure word will spread and more will visit. As that happens, their trust level will improve. When we made the announcement upon our return from Earth, several rumours started that the gate you were building was so warships to come and conquer us. Our population has much anxiety and trepidation about meeting aliens. It stems from the reports from our previous unpleasant experiences with meeting other races being made public. It has spawned many movies about aliens either invading or enslaving us. Before the Federation, though, no one has ever actually visited our planet. Would you mind waiting a couple of days and we’ll do another announcement with you?”

Mark was disappointed, but understood the hesitancy of the Norn people. “Sure, we can wait for a couple of days. Didn’t you previously meet with the Mazjik?”

“Every time we met the Mazjik, it was simply the crossing of our paths as we both were exploring space. They found our planet many millennia ago, but their practices of not interfering with planets until they reach a certain level of evolution meant they just moved on by. Speaking of Mazjik, I’ve never been on one of their ships before. May we have a tour?”

Cricket took it upon herself to correct the assumption. “Actually, this is not a Mazjik ship. It’s a Nereid-class ship of Atlantean design. The exterior is based on the larger Defender-class ships created by the Mazjik. The Federation has two of those, but the interior of this ship is completely Atlantean and very different.”

The Norn seemed disappointed that this was not a Mazjik ship, but Mark offered to give them a tour anyway.

Although it was much smaller than a Sentinel or even a Defender, it still took a while for the short-legged Norn to walk around the ship. Fortunately, they only had to walk around the front section of the ship, as the factory bay and landing pods were basically large, open, mostly unused areas. So, really, it was a tour of the medical and library, followed by the bridge and living area, then finally up to the park at the top.

During the tour, though, the Norn relaxed and talked a little more openly. They eventually admitted that, in their society, the eminences all had equal status. They just made sure there was always an odd number of them, so there was never a voting stalemate.

For the benefit of the eminences, Junga asked, “How do you and the Federation handle interacting with new planets?”

Mark suspected the eminences always wanted them to have more contact with planets, but previous experiences hadn’t worked out so well for them in the past.

Mark recounted his own experiences with meeting new planets. Even his experiences visiting other countries on his home planet after he had been in contact with the aliens. “It’s natural to not trust the unknown. I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve tried to kill me! That is why everywhere I go, that is not controlled by Federation security, I always wear my personal shield and have cloaked security drones following me.”

That revelation surprised the Norn. Even though he was human, he still had to deal with everything they had experienced with the few times they had tried contacting new civilizations and planets.

Junga made sure he iterated what the Mazjik had told them long ago about interfering with other planets.

The Norn continued to ask many questions and eventually wound up in the boardroom listening to Liyana as she went through her normal Federation recruitment spiel. That was the most condensed everything-about-the-Federation speech that answered most of the common questions.

In the end, they confirmed their decision to remain independent for the time being. Satisfied with the orbital embassy, open lines of communication, trade, and tourism with the rest of the Federation.

They also reaffirmed their position of cooperatively protecting the nine planets they had been watching over. After all, the Federation had proven itself far more capable than the Norn when dealing with the Destructor threat. Plus, the Federation had plans to recruit those planets.

During the information exchange, Mark and the gang also learned much about Norn society. Nearly 2,000 yahren ago, their planet was overcrowded and polluted. They had run across the Mazjik when they were looking for a new planet. While the Mazjik had not given them any technology; they imparted some knowledge that led to the Norn developing a device that could manipulate mass, similar to the Mazjik construx devices. That invention allowed them to build the ring.

The ring circled the entire planet, and most of the population now lived on the ring, but there was still a healthy population on the surface.

The entire surface population worked in food production, entertainment, and tourism.

With the meeting concluded, some of them wanted to go up to the park and try golfing. Others wanted to go visit the library and learn more since they hadn’t visited the library at the embassy yet.

Liyana led the group wanting to visit the library down on the lower deck.

Mark led the rest of them up to the park.

The new virtual golf system was very popular, and the crew used it every day.

Rather than just hitting the ball into a force field and displaying a virtual representation of where the ball landed, the central section of the park would transform itself into each hole of the actual course. The trees were just holograms and force fields to expedite the illusion, but it looked and felt pretty realistic. The downfall is that you all had to play the same course and hole at once. Although you could have as many players as you wanted, as it automatically kept score.

Since the holes were of different lengths, there was always a cart path that led down to the other tee box. Once everyone reached the other end, the next hole would generate itself, and you’d work your way back. There was even a randomize function that would pick a hole from any of the courses in the system. So you could end up playing hole 1 at Hope on Colonia and hole 2 at Rifterville on Thulark.

Mark got them set up with some clubs. Then gave them a quick golf lesson using the traditional virtual golf booths at the clubhouse, which made for a good driving range and lessons. After a quick golf lesson, they let them loose to try a game. Not everyone took part, but most of them did. At least they didn’t have to walk, as each player got a single-seat hover scooter that carried their clubs.

The scoreboard was just a holographic leaderboard that was projected above the park.

Mark, Annabelle, and Rayven opted not to play, as did a few of the Norn.

Mark just walked along, giving the Norn tips on club selection and swing stance. After a couple of holes, they didn’t need as much coaching and seemed to have fun.

Mark returned to the clubhouse patio, where Annabelle and Soriya were nowhere to be seen.

Cricket informed Mark. “Annabelle took Soriya to the playroom.”

Mark excused himself and went into the clubhouse and to the playroom, where he found Soriya lying on one bench while a dildo was pumping in and out of her. Annabelle was also naked and using another nearby machine that was fucking both of her holes.

He still loved seeing her naked. Her voluptuous bosom swaying as the two dildos fucked her. After giving her a kiss and fondling her breasts.

Annabelle said, “I’m sure Soriya would like a good fuck.”

Mark no longer had to imagine what their bodies were like beneath those loose-fitting toga sheets. Her body was very petite, but more womanly than he had expected. She had small breasts, with nipples only a slightly darker shade than the rest of her skin. Her legs were humanlike, but seemed more like dwarf legs since they were so short. Her entire body was grey, although her pussy seemed to have a tinge of pink to it while it was being fucked.

The machine didn’t have an enormous dildo on it, but it looked like she had the machine set on the longest stroke. The dildo disappeared entirely into her pussy on the inward strokes and pulled out almost completely on the outward strokes.

Fortunately for Mark, Soriya was lost in her own bliss. Oblivious to her surroundings as she relished the sensations coursing through her body. The machine was fucking her at a steady pace as she kneaded her tiny breasts. Pinching and pulling her pert little nipples; making them stand at attention atop her small mounds.

Her body got a few shades lighter as she neared her orgasm. By the time she came, her body was almost white with a bit of a rose blush to it. When she came, her eyes opened wide, and she saw Mark standing beside her. This seemed to intensify her orgasm as her small body bucked. Unfortunately, the dildo was on an outstroke when she bucked, and the lubrication from her pussy allowed the dildo to penetrate her ass.

She cried out.

Mark was unsure if her orgasm caused it, getting caught, or because she just got fucked in the ass?

She quickly withdrew from the machine, grabbed her clothes and covered her body as the dildo kept thrusting into thin air.

Mark simply smiled at her and said, “That looked incredible, but you didn’t have to stop on my account.”

She smiled and relaxed, letting her arms loosen the grip on her clothes and allowing her tiny breasts to be exposed to Mark’s gaze once again.

“Human bodies are so beautiful. My body type does not disgust you?”

“Absolutely not! Sure, it’s different from a human body, but that’s what makes it so intriguing. It’s different, but I can see it’s very much female everywhere that matters.”

Her smile got even bigger as she let go of her clothes and let them drop away from her body. She allowed her legs to part slightly, exposing her bare slit, which was still leaking her juices.

Mark licked his lips as he looked into her eyes and then looked at her pussy. “May I?”

She spread her legs even more, as Mark dropped to his knees and moved toward her silky slit. Despite their cold-looking grey skin, it was actually warm to the touch. Mark kissed the nub at the top of her slit and tentatively licked the cum that still moistened her freshly fucked pussy.

Her cum was actually very human-like, with a bit of a salty, sweet taste to it as he licked deeper inside her, much to her delight.

If her moans were any sign, she seemed to like the cunnilingus Mark was performing on her already sensitive pussy.

“Would you fuck me, please? I would like to experience a human cock.” She said as her eyes locked with Mark’s.

“Are you sure? I’m bigger than that dildo you were just using.”

Soriya reached out and started undoing Mark’s belt and then pants. Sliding down his pants, her eyes went wide as she stared at the outline of his cock under his briefs.

Her stare unwavering, she dragged his underwear down, releasing his semi-erect cock from its tight confines. Tentatively, she wrapped her fingers around the shaft, feeling its weight as it rested in her hand.

As it grew and hardened, she finally tore her gaze away and looked Mark in the eyes. “Wow, that is bigger than my arm.” Then, with a sly twist of her lips. “I like a challenge.”

Mark picked Soriya up off the machine and kissed her, which felt weird as they didn’t really have lips.

Cupping her tiny ass, Mark carried her over to the bed and set her down on the edge.

Her hands quickly grabbed Mark’s manhood and guided it towards her sex as she lay back onto the soft bed.

Mark let her be in control as he just relished the sensations. Once she started trying to pull him into her, he worked with her as she wiggled to accommodate his girth. When the head finally popped through her inner ring, her eyes almost bugged out. She stopped breathing as Mark slowly sank into her depths until the tip was pressing against her womb.

Soriya looked down and saw that Mark still had a couple of inches to go, then she finally breathed and actually laughed. “Wow, you’re big, but I’m afraid I can’t take anymore. Do I feel good to you, considering you’re only partially in?”

Mark laughed as his cock tingled. “Of course it feels good, but I can make it feel better. Not all humans can do this, but I can.”

She gasped as his cock got larger around and his cock shrunk down to something more her size. Soon their groins were touching as Mark then pumped slowly in and out of the tiny grey female. Her body was already a very pale grey, with the area around her sex a light shade of pink. Her cunt slick with her natural lubrication as Mark’s cock slid in and out of her body.

Soriya climaxed first; her pussy squeezing Mark’s cock tightly as Mark continued to fuck her. His continued pumping maintained her climax long enough that her entire body turned white with just a slight pink tinge. Except for her pussy and nipples, which were now bright pink.

Mark soon reached his own climax and started pumping hot cum deep into Soriya, which prompted yet another powerful orgasm as her entire body turned pink.

Once Mark’s cock stopped pulsing inside the thrilled female, they finally separated.

Annabelle had already climaxed, so she was nearby when Mark came.

Soriya used her fingers to catch the leaking cum, bringing them to her mouth and licking them clean. As her pussy slowly returned to its normal size, Annabelle joined in and finished licking Soriya’s pussy clean, much to the petite grey woman’s delight.

Soon, the trio dressed and returned to the patio area of the clubhouse. A quick look at the leaderboard showed Junga was currently the leader of all the Norn. Though he was quite a few strokes behind the nearest crew player.

Soriya’s skin hadn’t quite returned to its normal shade of grey, which caught the attention of the three other Norn females that were not playing golf. It was unclear if they could speak telepathically, but Mark guessed they could, as they were all now turning lighter shades of grey. They behaved as if they were having a conversation, although their mouths weren’t moving and they made no sounds.

The golfing group only played nine holes, so the game didn’t take very long. They were hungry when they finished, so Mark barbecued some burgers at the clubhouse.

The Norn appreciated the hamburgers, but just like when he first met up with the crashed ship at the High Lake, they had to introduce them to all the condiments.

Over lunch, the Norn broached the idea of formalizing the alliance between the Norn and the Federation by signing a treaty. They felt that a signed agreement between them might ease the tensions their people had about interfacing with new species. They could do a public announcement and signing from the central government facility, Zero. Media would be there, and they could hold the ceremony in two days’ time.

Annabelle asked, “Why is it called Zero?”

Ma’Kark, one of the male eminences, responded, “It is called Zero because it is the property of no one and the base of everything. Zero is a large floating facility that moves around the tropical belt of the oceans. Besides the primary meeting chamber and nourishment centre, there are buildings for each of the eminences and their assistants, as well as buildings for the media and guests.”

Mark said, “Floating infrastructure has a lot of advantages. We use them for business hubs and even the Atlantis Port Terminal.”

“Before the ring, we had much floating infrastructure, as you call it.”

Mark then pondered before asking, “I just thought of something. I mean I haven’t seen your planet, but from what I can see from up here in orbit, if your planet was once overcrowded you must have had huge sprawling cities. They would likely be easily visible from space, but it looks quite green and clean down there. What happened?”

Ma’Kark had been standing, but sat down to regale the tale. “It is true. We had many massive cities visible from orbit. The pollution around the populous areas of the planet became toxic to breathe for extended periods of time. With the invention of the molecular reorganizers, we considered colonizing another planet. Unfortunately, the only habitable planets we knew about already had humanoid life on them. In our travels, we had seen several ringed planets, so our engineers came up with a plan to build a ring around our planet.

We built the geostationary ring in just under fifty yahren, with people moving from the surface as we completed each section. It was free to move to the ring, so many people moved to the ring primarily for health reasons. The air was clean, and most of the commerce and professional services moved to the ring as they preferred the controlled environment.

As each building on the surface was emptied, we would use the molecular reorganizers to demolish the building and return the ground to a natural state. As the big cities emptied, nature took care of cleaning up the atmosphere. Many animals that were on the brink of extinction have also rebuilt their numbers.

These days it’s pretty much just farmers and ranchers. There’s small towns also that provide local amenities, and that’s where most of the workers live since they often work at multiple farms. Anyone living on the surface lives in an underground residence to minimize surface interference. Although many of them live on the ring as well and just travel back and forth every day.”

Annabelle smiled, “See Liyana, there is a chance we can still save the Earth!”

Liyana looked at her with a skeptical look. “The Norn are intelligent and logical. They probably weren’t constantly fighting and arguing with each other. After seeing the people that run the countries on Earth—I wouldn’t say intelligence or logic are strengths for many of them.”

Annabelle laughed. “That’s a good point! Until they all work together, if populations move off-world, the lands will eventually get taken over by another nation.”

Mark said, “Exactly! Right now, most of the world would probably work together. It’s just the few countries that are run by communists and dictatorships, where the people have little to no freedoms, that would eventually be left. They’d have the run of the planet.”

Annabelle shook her head, “That’s scary! China is already one of the worst polluters on the planet. Could you imagine how much pollution they would make with free run of the planet?”

Mark thought about it for a second. “Actually, if they finally had total control of everything and there weren’t other nations to clean up their mess. It might force them to take some responsibility in caring for the planet. Although their people would likely still have little freedom.”

With the history lesson winding down and two days before the treaty signing, the Eminences all returned to their ships and went home.

Mark looked at his group and asked, “Since we have time, who wants to take a quick tour of the nine other planets in this area?”

Annabelle looked at Mark. “Only if it’s simple meet and greets! No staying to fight holy wars.”

Mark nodded. “Agreed! That was totally unexpected at Braga, and I only meant it to be a simple meet and greet.”

Liyana said, “In Mark’s defence, Braga was an exception. They had a population already familiar with the Federation and had simply been waiting for the Federation to return. Atria, Magellan and Maaku didn’t have as much involvement as Braga did. If there are any issues at any of the planets, I say we simply call in support rather than try to do it all ourselves.”

Just then, Cricket popped up and said, “Mark, by my calculations, that little ship should appear near Rift 13 at any moment.”

Mark smiled. “You know what? The nine planets can wait. Like you said, they will probably take some time to visit, not to mention a big ship travelling through the rifts could waste a lot of time as well. I vote we go investigate that little ship! At the very least we could expand our monitoring of that area, so we can track it longer.”

Everyone considered it for all of half a micron before finally agreeing that now was as good a time as any.

As Cricket piloted the Galatea to Rift 13, Mark filled everyone in on all the information they had collected.

The mystery ship appears every twelve days in the same spot. It travels along the edge of the sensor network at sub-light speed until it goes beyond the scanning range. Then returns later at the first location.

They had speculated that it might be some sort of merchant ship following a trade route, but if that were the case, why hadn’t the seeding ships found any planets?

Today was the twelfth day, so that little ship could show up at any moment.

They could focus the sensor and scanning array on Galatea. That extended the range greater than that of the individual sensor beacons. They moved in the direction the ship always appeared. If they encountered the ship, they could always follow it.

After nearly four centares of heading in that direction, they detected Rift 27. Mark smiled, knowing his rift-seeding experiment was still working. Plus, the crew of the Atlantia had yet another window to return home.

He then thought maybe instead of a merchant trade route, they were using the rifts as a transportation corridor? That theory was weak. Travelling at sub-light speeds, there were no planets within twelve days.

Upon detection of Rift 27, Cricket deployed the seeding ships they always kept at the ready and began making a new set. One ship went directly toward Rift 13 to connect the two regions. Although it would have only taken a secton or two of natural expansion for the network to expand outward enough to link into the network at Rift 13.

Since there was no sign of the mystery ship and they moved on.

Knowing the point where the mystery ship was last detected and a working hypothesis about the path the mystery ship was taking. They headed for the exit point and started looking for a rift or planet in that direction.

In FTL, it only took centons to reach the mystery ship’s last detection point. Then, just like the first time, they started heading in the direction they thought the mystery ship had left.

Fortunately, not long into their journey, the mystery ship appeared on the sensor network. It hadn’t come through Rift 27, so that disproved the hypothesis that Rift 27 was the route they were using.

That’s the problem with three-dimensional space. If your trajectory is off by even a fraction of one degree in any direction, by the time you’re any distance out, you may be way off from where you intended. Plus, there was no guarantee that their trajectory was straight from wherever they came from.

To eliminate any further assumptions, they decided to just wait for the ship and follow it.

The mystery ship hadn’t changed course or done anything different, so either it didn’t realize the sensor network was now monitoring its route, or it simply didn’t care. Either way, now that it was travelling through monitored space, they were learning more about its trajectory.

With a day to wait for the ship, they occupied themselves with movies, correspondence, cooking, games, and finally, a game of strip golf that led to an orgy on the green.

When they woke up the next morning, Cricket informed them they were now tailing the mystery ship. They all congregated on the bridge and watched the tiny ship as it led them out of the previous sensor range. Mark tried to hail it again, but got no response.

The mystery ship was tiny, roughly the same size as the craft Magellan used when they got lost in space. So that ruled out being some kind of merchant trading vessel—it was simply too small to carry cargo or passengers.

They doubted it was even manned. So they speculated it might be some sort of patrol ship, considering it seemed to follow a pre-programmed route and it was not responding to any hails.

After several centares of following the tiny ship, Rift 32 came into range, and the tiny ship proceeded directly into the rift. They couldn’t risk following the ship into the rift, so they deployed the seeding ships and began making another set. They proceeded back to where the mystery ship had appeared near Rift 27. Cricket then lined up the Galatea with the updated route information and started tracking it back.

As they focussed the scanners forward, they detected Rift 34 after a little more than a centar into their trip.

Rift 34 was cause for celebration. That number meant the rift connections were consistent. A great relief to know that Derek and the crew of the Atlantia would definitely follow the same path as the rift seeders. Now they had many more points at which the crew could return home. The ship’s pattern of entering and exiting rifts 32 and 34 led to the logical conclusion that Rift 33 was near its home planet.

Since they had just started making a new set of seeding ships, they simply waited until one was ready and sent it off directly toward Rift 32. Just in case other ships were going between those two gates on more direct routes.

Since they did not expect the ship back for another twelve days, they proceeded back to Norsvund’ka for the announcement.

Upon returning to Norsvund’ka, they took a shuttle over to the orbiting embassy.

Something must have changed, as there were far more people visiting than Mark expected. The last report had shown that the embassy had received very few visitors, but now there was a constant flow of shuttles arriving and departing, and there were thousands of little grey people wandering around—including all the Eminences.

They saw Mark and the gang and immediately came to greet them. Eminence Soriya, now acting as their leader.

Maybe having sex had imbued a new level of trust in her?

“Welcome back, my king and queen. As you can see, your embassy is gaining popularity. It was actually through the interviews with some of our cultural icons that have brought this on. They asked to use the Zero-G park for some scenes in an upcoming movie and they mentioned it in our social networks. Any announcement we do now will probably not affect the popularity of your embassy. Did anything productive happen with the planets you were going to visit?”

“Actually we didn’t end up visiting them. A mystery ship showed up and we tried to contact them. They didn’t respond, but we found some new rifts and can now monitor their entire route. The mystery ship arrives at Rift 34, then travels to Rift 32. So logically that would put Rift 33 in the middle and likely whatever planet they are from. I’m still not ready to go through the rift myself, but I’m coming up with a plan for doing some reconnaissance.”

“That’s wonderful news! You will soon meet them, and since you’ve mentioned you face some of the same issues we do when meeting new civilizations. May we request having two ambassadors accompany you when meeting the makers of the mystery ship? Is that something you would consider?”

“Sure, why not? We’re all on the same side and we have similar goals. I have no problems if you want to be there when we meet new civilizations.”

“Wonderful! We will meet and choose two candidates to accompany you.”

“The mystery ship should return in twelve days, but we’ll notify you as soon as we detect it. I would recommend choosing your candidates sooner rather than later and make sure they’re ready to go on a moment’s notice. Surely the owners of that ship are intelligent and they must realize that we’ve been tracking and following their ship. They could send something else through that rift at any time.”

“We shall meet immediately. Thank you, my King.” Soriya said before bowing and walking toward the administrative section with the other eminences.

Mark and the gang toured the embassy, stopping to talk to all the staff, then eventually sitting down for a meal at the bar.

When the eminences found them, they were watching a professional golf tournament taking place at one of the Rifterville courses at Thulark. It was nice to see Thulark growing in popularity and the Rifters finally having a home.

Soriya stepped forward as the spokesperson again. “We have made our selection. It really wasn’t a hard decision, and it was unanimous. Our senior ambassador has always been Junga. The chances of you meeting new civilizations is far greater than ours, so Junga was the logical choice. Since Jehanna is his wife, it was also the logical choice.”

Junga and Jehanna both stepped forward and bowed to Mark and Annabelle. “Would you mind if we moved our belongings to your ship? We have lived on the Mtozny’k so long that we actually do not have a permanent residence. We simply stay at resorts on our downtime. Everything we own is on the ship, although by human standards, we have little in the way of belongings.”

“By all means, we have plenty of space and our living quarters in the Galatea are quite expansive. You should find living with us quite comfortable. If there’s something you would like changed in your residence, Cricket can easily make the adjustments.”

“We shall begin packing at once. Thank you, my King and Queen.” Both bowed and began walking toward the departure exit.

Soriya smiled. “They are both looking forward to spending time on your ship.” Then, with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her lips, she whispered directly to Mark and Annabelle. “I know I enjoyed spending time on your ship.”

Liyana asked, “Since we don’t need to make the announcement anymore, do you have a museum or video footage of what your planet was like before the ring? I’d like to create a video to show other cultures what they can do to save a planet.”

Soriya answered. “Yes, of course. We have videos of our past. It’s taught in our history education, but we also have museums that show our entire history. In anticipation of our allegiance with the Federation, we have already collected videos and information for you. Which prompts our second request. Since we have not had great success meeting other cultures, we would ask if you could put some information into your library. So everyone can learn more about us, in hopes that as our citizens travel throughout your Federation they don’t get treated the way we have in the past.”

Liyana was quick to respond. “We have already added the Norn to our library, but we will gladly add your information. Although, you would already be treated normally most anywhere in the Federation. Especially at the planets that have been part of the Federation for thousands of yahren. They have much experience in interacting with different races and cultures and their populations would already comprise many species. The areas to be concerned about are young planets just transitioning into the Federation. All would have experienced other species by now, but there may be pockets on those planets that are still stuck in their old ways. Security would protect you, of course, but the experience might not be as pleasant. On planets such as Earth and Braga, where only small parts of the planet have joined the Federation, it would be advisable to stay within controlled spaces.”

Mark laughed. “Even on Earth, there are some places where I won’t even go—and I was born on that planet.”

Most of the eminences laughed at that. “It still surprises us you meet with the same conflict that we thought was specific to us.”

“It’s not specific to you. Humans are strange creatures. They can be very intelligent and capable of great things, but many are just too lazy to use common sense. That makes them gullible and, therefore, corruptible. Then, even if you show them the error in their thinking as disproved by both science and logic, they simply dismiss it as you trying to brainwash them.” He then paused and let out a sigh. “Sadly, despite the overwhelming amount of bullshit dispensed by governments, the media and the uneducated, common sense still doesn’t grow in everybody’s garden.”

The eminences laughed at the agriculture reference as they thanked Mark and the crew for allowing their ambassadors to accompany their adventures and looked forward to the people of their world interacting with other species on Norsvund’ka and elsewhere in the Federation.

Soriya then suggested a resort on the surface where they could rest and relax. It was called Calla D’un on the shore of T’kaspo Lac.

They made a reservation at the resort for the next ten days. That would give Cricket and Mark time to come up with an exploration plan for Rift 33 and enjoy a nice, relaxing vacation at the same time.

The time spent watching the sensor network around that area expand revealed three more rifts in that area. One was still unnumbered, but now they knew where Rifts 19 and 41 were.

With the discovery of more rifts, Cricket started moving the Rift 13 gate to be more central. It also prompted them to rename the gate to Rift Central since the area seemed to be a hot spot for rift activity.

As the expected arrival of the mystery ship neared, everyone was ready to go on a moment’s notice as they monitored Rift 34. The mystery ship had shown no capability of FTL travel. Upon detecting it, they could quickly jump to Rift Central and then intercept the ship long before it reached Rift 32.

Junga and Jehanna had become fast friends with the rest of the crew, although they still weren’t as outgoing as everyone else.

During the waiting period, Cricket and Mark designed two ships that were ready to deploy. They named one Tail, and the other was Boomerang. If they couldn’t talk to the mystery ship, then the two ships were to follow it through the rift. Using data collected from the previous attempted engagement, the ships were identical in size and shape to the mystery ship. Therefore, they should traverse the rift at the same rate as the mystery ship. Both ships were autonomous and equipped with a long-range scanner and sensor array, but Tail was also carrying construx for creating seeding ships.

Tail’s mission was to follow the mystery ship until it reached a planet. Boomerang was simply to take a snapshot of what was on the other side and then return to Rift 34.

If, for any reason, Tail lost the mystery ship, it was to search for any planets. Then manufacture and deploy the seeding ships from the planet. The seeding ships would disperse on straight outward lines to increase the chances of hitting a monitored area. They could worry about redundancy once they connected the area to the network.

On the twelfth day, the mystery ship appeared at Rift 34. Not expecting any results, short of deploying the two ships, only Mark, Annabelle, Liyana, Gyges, Junga, and Jehanna were going on this trip. Everyone else wanted to stay at the resort.

Junga and Jehanna just wanted to go on a mission with the Federation, no matter how boring they expected it to be.

As soon as the mystery ship made its appearance, they departed for Rift Central and monitored its progress. As expected, hailing the ship yielded no success, so they deployed Tail and Boomerang and let them follow the mystery ship into the rift.

The Galatea then returned to Rift 34 to await the return of Boomerang.

After a centar of waiting at Rift 34, they detected turbulence in the nebular cloud and centons later the Boomerang was back aboard the Galatea. Confirming that going through Rift 32 would be safe, as you would simply return through Rift 34.

After analyzing the information, Rift 33 had a typical Earth-like planet nearby. There was at least one space station in orbit, and they could see a few other small ships. The planet looked safe enough, but they didn’t know enough about the people that had developed the technology.

Unsure if they were friends or foes, they decided they needed an expedition to the planet. Likely via a small ship so as not to waste so much time traversing the rift.

Requiring further discussion and contemplation, they headed toward Rift Central.

Before they even reached the hypergate, Cricket said, “I am detecting a large ship coming out of Rift 34.”

“We didn’t detect any ships at Rift 33, though!”

“No, we did not! So the only logical explanation is this ship was already in transit before Boomerang returned. Our ship just returned faster.”

“We have communication and sensor beacons all over that area now, don’t we?”

“Yes, I’m guessing you want to hail this ship?”

“We have had no luck with the little mystery ship. Maybe we’ll have success hailing one of their bigger ships, which are more likely to be manned. Turn on the cloak and head back to Rift 34.”

Mark updated everyone else that they were going to delay going to the resort as they detected a ship coming out of Rift 34. Everyone proceeded to the bridge, as everyone settled around, and Cricket hailed the ship once it was fully out of the nebula.

The hail was accepted and microns later Mark looked at a beautiful woman who appeared to be in her 20s or 30s with sparkling blue eyes and short blonde hair.

The woman said, “I am Commander Skye of the Celestia. Reveal and identify yourselves.”

Mark smiled and said, “I can’t reveal myself because I’m not there.”

“How are you hailing us, then?”

“Because I have technology that allows me to. I’m sitting on the bridge of my ship. We are currently travelling to your location.”

The Commander looked surprised. “Who are you?”

“My name is Mark Phoenix and I am the King of the Atlantean Federation.”

Again, she had a surprised look. “Atlantean Federation—as in Atlantis on Terra?”

“Yes, who do you represent?”

“We represent the Mazjik from New Mazjorca.”

Cricket then explained, “The original home planet of the Mazjik was Mazjorca. It’s possible this is one of the Colonial Project missions that was lost. They may very well be Mazjik, but may not even know their home planet has since died.”

Mark thought about how to broach the subject for a few seconds. “Riiiigggghhhhttttt. The Mazjik died off over a thousand yahren ago.”

“You are a human from Terra. What would you know of the Mazjik?”

“Quite a lot actually, the Mazjik spent the remainder of their lives teaching us to carry their legacy.”

“We turned to humans to carry on our legacy? That seems highly unlikely, especially humans from Terra!”

“OK, let’s trade questions. If you know so much, then you should recognize my truths.” Mark said.

“That sounds fair.”

“Why did you leave Mazjorca?”

Her demeanour immediately changed to one of thoughtful reminisce. “We originally left thousands of yahren ago on a mission to find a planet we could move to. Another ship attacked us, and our primary vessel was destroyed. We survived in several shuttles and smaller vessels, but had to escape through one of the space anomalies and could never find our way back.”

“So you got lost. Do you know the current status of Mazjorca?”

“What happened to trading questions?”

Mark gestured for her to continue.

“I ask you the same question. What is the current status of Mazjorca?”

“From what they told us, the rising radiation from the sun forced the evacuation of the planet. Later they realized the radiation had sterilized them. In that knowledge, they took the Atlanteans from Earth, aka Terra, and settled a planet they had been terraforming. Knowing their time was limited, they taught us to carry on their legacy.”

Commander Skye looked as if she were on the verge of tears. “That’s why we were searching for a new planet. If they all died, that would have repeated for every ship that left after us. We had several citizens that could not reproduce, but fortunately, not all of us. We may be the last of the Mazjik.”

Mark nodded his head, knowing her answer was truthful, before throwing one last question at her. “So this mission you got lost on—was that the Colonial Project?”

At the very mention of that project, the Commander looked as if someone had slapped her. “That you even know of the Colonial Project tells me you have, in fact, been entrusted by my ancestors. That project was long before our departure though.”

Mark felt that she was also telling the truth, and they were actually the Mazjik—or at least descendants of them. “Would it be OK if we meet?”

“Yes, I think that would be wise. While you travel to our location, since you obviously know where we are, we shall go back to New Mazjorca and speak to the council, then meet you back here. There are no planets near here, so how long will it take you to arrive?”

Mark said, “Actually, we should be almost there.”

She felt surprised and then laughed. “Then we shall remain here to meet you.”

As expected, both ships were cloaked. A ship that looked like a Defender was visible to the scanners, so Cricket piloted the Galatea so that the ships were facing each other.

They hailed the Celestia, and microns later the Commander responded.

“Greetings Commander, we have arrived. We are currently in front of your ship, which actually looks almost identical to our Defender-class ships.”

The Commander was surprised. “You said you are right in front of us? We see nothing, but you say you can see us? Wait! Do you have one of our Defenders?”

“We can’t actually see you, as your ship is cloaked, but our scanners can see your ship. Yes, they left us two of their Defenders. We use them for deep space exploration and when we introduce ourselves to new planets.”

“Our scanners detect nothing. Shall we turn off our cloaking?”

Cricket turned off the cloak. Then, within seconds, the Mazjik turned off theirs.

To their surprise, the ship that was waiting for them was similar, but not exactly like a Defender.

“So how could you see our ship, but we could not see yours?”

“It’s technical and beyond my knowledge. Taking a guess, I’d say it’s because your cloaking technology is based on older or simpler technology. Everything this ship uses has been updated.”

The Commander looked sad. “I guess it makes sense. You’ve been out there exploring space and have likely encountered many other species and planets. Whereas we’ve only got one Defender, and we stay close to home to defend the planet against those guys that destroy planets.”

“Are they in large round grey ships and fire a huge mining laser into the planet’s core?”

“Yes, I take it you have encountered them before?”

“A couple of times. We call them Destructors.”

“Appropriately named.”

“If you have a Defender with a light drive, why wouldn’t you have explored further? There’s ten planets close to here.”

The Commander looked ashamed. “I’m sure you realize this is not a true Defender. Those ships you described, destroyed our ship. When we had to abandon ship, we lost most of our knowledge and technology. We had to reverse engineer technology from everything we saved and built from scratch. Many people with that technical knowledge died in the attack. None of the survivors had knowledge of bio-engineering or light drives. All we had was a few tablets that had bits and pieces of information, but no AI. Most of it is just stories from our past now. This ship was designed to look like our original ship, but we currently don’t have the singularity drivers or light drive capability. The science foundation has developed a light drive. We were coming back to have it installed when they redirected us to check out the activity on this side of the nebula.”

“We should meet. Do you want to come to our ship or should I go to yours?”

“If I may ask a favour, you can obviously travel faster than us. If we come over there, can you take us to the other nebula? Then we can either send a shuttle home and bring some of the council to meet you. Or you could simply accompany us to New Mazjorca? Obviously, our people have much to discuss.”

“By all means! Come on over, land in the starboard bay. We’ll stick to meeting in this neutral space for now.”

“That’s what I expected you would say. I’ve never heard that other term before. Which landing pod is starboard?”

“The right one when approaching from the rear of the ship. We’ll turn the lights off in the other pod.”

“We’ll be over momentarily.”

Upon disconnecting the call, they all went to the landing bay and waited for the shuttle to land. Still, the redesigned shuttle was the only thing there.

The ship they arrived on was identical to the shuttles that the Federation used, or maybe the Federation simply used the same shuttles the Mazjik used? The exterior design of the shuttles was identical in every way, except for the combination laser turret and TRD mounted underneath the cockpit, and the symbol on the tail fin.

They landed beside the shuttle, and a man and two women exited, all of them comparing the two shuttles.

The Mazjik were much like the Silicans. They looked human in every way. All about 7-foot tall, but didn’t have pointy ears.

After a moment of analysis, the man said, “Seeing your shuttle further bolsters the Commander’s assessment of your civilization. You may very well have been entrusted by our ancestors to carry on our legacy. It looks to me like we’re on another Mazjik vessel, just a more technologically advanced one. Although I’m not sure I like the fact that you have weaponized a mere shuttle.”

Mark smiled. “Actually, this ship is not Mazjik at all. The exterior is simply a smaller version of a Defender-class ship, but it’s all Atlantean on the inside. As for the weapons on the shuttle—that’s a recent addition we’ve yet to use. The need was born from a recent conflict at one of our newest colonies. The unarmed shuttle was the only ship on the planet and we were facing an armed invasion. Just being able to fire a warning shot would’ve deescalated the situation. We turned away the attack with no loss of life, but it wasn’t easy.”

As the man smiled, Commander Skye introduced herself, Ambassador Anthony, and Pilot Lanie.

The Commander was even more beautiful in person than on the screen.

Annabelle nudged Mark to snap him out of his reverie.

“Welcome to the Galatea! It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Mark Phoenix, the King of the Atlantean Federation. With me is my wife, Queen Annabelle, Ambassador Liyana, and my security, Gyges. Beside them are the Norn ambassadors, Junga and Jehanna. We are a bit short staffed as we weren’t expecting to make contact.”

At the mention of the Norn, Ambassador Anthony said, “From the stories I remember, I thought you might be the Norn. We considered the Norn friends even though we seldom met.”

Junga said, “It is a pleasure to once again make the acquaintance of the Mazjik. You are correct, our people only met in chance encounters among the stars. We also considered the Mazjik friends.”

Cricket popped into existence and said, “We have arrived at Rift 32.”

Skye asked, “What’s that?”

Mark asked, “What’s what? Cricket?”

“I’m assuming Cricket is the AI that helps manage the ship. We have one too.” Skye said with a knowing smile, then she asked, “What is Rift 32?”

“Oh, those anomalies in the nebular clouds you use. We call them rifts. We’ve got some automated ships mapping them. As they exit each rift, they deploy sensor and identity beacons and then disperse seeding ships in various directions. After dropping off the scouts, they manufacture another set and go back into the rift. Repeating the process indefinitely, while hoping one day the seeding ships will intersect a region that we actively monitor. This is the 32nd rift.”

“That sounds like how we found the two rifts we were using. Have you ever gone through one of those rifts?”

“Not personally, but we have a mission exploring the rifts. We don’t know exactly where they are at the moment. We last saw them at Rift 5, and the next time we expect to see them will be Rift 13. Unless we stumble upon a lower numbered rift.”

Skye said, “You have people exploring these rifts? How did you recruit people to go on a potentially one-way mission?”

“We already had those automated scouts traversing the rifts, and we had identified Rifts 1, 2 and 5 by the time their mission got underway. They started at Rift 2 and each time they reach a known rift, new people may join the crew and current crew may leave. Since they left, we have found many other rifts. I think the highest number so far is 41, but we’ve also found some unidentified rifts. Which means our scouts haven’t reached those yet. So the mission was never really one-way.”

The Ambassador asked, “So once you map out enough of those rifts, are you going to use them as transportation corridors?”

“If they lead somewhere useful that isn’t currently connected to our network. It is only useful if we have a return path. Then we would build hypergates near the rifts for ease of access.”

Lanie asked, “What’s a hypergate?”

“Our latest invention!” Mark said, smiling with pride. “Hypergates are our preferred method to travel anywhere in our monitored space. They allow near instantaneous travel between gates.”

“We must speak to the council.” Anthony said as he looked at his cohort. “If we are already at the return nebula, we should depart. We’ll talk to the council and return to the other nebula. Some of them may even return with us.”

Skye smiled and added. “By the way, I am staying with you until they return.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you want.”

Liyana then looked at Mark and asked, “If Skye is staying here, maybe I could go with Lanie and Anthony? We can talk ambassador-to-ambassador on the way and I may help persuade some of the council to return.”

Mark shrugged his shoulders as Anthony nodded and agreed that she could go.

“Cricket, send two drones with her. See what you can learn about their civilization. Send one back with her and leave the other to explore.”

Anthony turned and started walking toward the shuttle. Everyone watched with a smile as he headed toward the wrong shuttle. Lanie cleared her throat to get his attention.

Anthony looked at her, saw the nod, and looked at the other shuttle. He then laughed, turned, and joined Lanie and Liyana as they boarded the correct shuttle.

As soon as their shuttle had disappeared into the nebula, Skye had a huge smile as she began rapid-firing questions. Can I get a tour of this ship? Can we use one of those hypergates? Can you take me to another planet? How many inhabited planets do you know about? What technology did my ancestors give you?

Everyone laughed as Mark just reached out and cupped her hand. “Relax, I think our people will interact regularly from this point on. How long do you think it will take for them to return to the other rift?”

Skye thought for a moment. “It is one centar through the nebula. They would message the council as soon as they exit, so the council should be able to meet immediately. They were all at the station when we left, so it should be a quick return. Then another centar to return through the nebula, so I’d estimate three centares minimum—maybe four or five if the council debates it.”

Knowing it would be at least three centares, everyone but Mark and Annabelle returned to the central lounge.

Cricket then spoke to Mark. “To confirm she is Mazjik, we should get her into a medibay. Once we confirm she is Mazjik, we could do many things for them, but I might suggest caution in giving them technology.”

Mark looked at Skye. “Did the stories of your ancestors mention their medical technologies?”

“Yes, they said we used to have medibays that, under the command of a medical professional, could fix almost anything.”

“They’re mostly automated now for basic checkups and minor injuries, but yes, under the command of a skilled professional, they can fix nearly anything. Would you mind going into a medibay? It would give you a checkup, but it would also confirm your identity as Mazjik. Confirming that will eliminate most of the barriers for sharing between our cultures.”

“Of course! I’ll gladly try some of our ancestral technology.”

Mark and Annabelle led Skye to the medibay, which really wasn’t that far from the landing bay.

When they reached the nearest room, Annabelle told Skye to go in, remove all her clothes and jewelry, and stand inside the illuminated oval.

At the mention of removing her clothes, Skye got a mischievous smile on her face as she started unzipping her jumpsuit. Her eyes locked on her audience as she slowly turned around, exposing her impressive cleavage as the zipper slid down to the top of her navel.

With a smooth move, she shrugged her shoulders and let the jumpsuit fall away from her upper body and hang on her hips. Skye had massive breasts, at least double-D, with pale pink nipples atop large areolae that were barely visible.

Skye’s eyes met Annabelle’s as she said, “I think your husband might be happy to see me.”

Annabelle patted the bulge in Mark’s pants with one hand while the other closed his gaping mouth. She smiled toward Skye. “Well, he’s certainly happy about something.” She then waved her hands in front of his face. “He also seems to be catatonic.”

Leaving Mark standing there with a smile on his face, Annabelle approached Skye and eased the jumpsuit off her hips, exposing her hairless pussy and leaning in for a lick while she was there.

Mark still hadn’t moved, so Annabelle removed the jumpsuit from around Skye’s feet and then led her into the room.

Mark snapped out of his stupor as the girls disappeared into the room. He shook his head, picked Skye’s jumpsuit off the floor, and entered the room. Annabelle was already naked and sitting spread eagle on the shelf as Skye currently had her tongue buried deep in Annabelle’s pink folds.

Sensing Mark was in the room, Skye wiggled her ass before suspending her cunnilingus to help Mark remove his pants. She kissed the head and gave him some licks before returning to her feast of Annabelle’s juicy pussy.

Skye kept stroking his cock to keep him hard and eventually guided him behind her and rubbed his cock up and down her wet slit, but not allowing him entry.

Once Annabelle came, she and Skye swapped positions.

Annabelle stroked Mark’s cock as she guided it toward Skye’s waiting cunt.

Mark sank in as deep as he could go. Her pussy was hot and soaked. Microns later, his cock tingled, and Skye gasped at his increased length and girth.

As he fucked in and out, Annabelle rubbed Skye’s clit and teased her nipples. Once Skye started to orgasm, Annabelle goaded Mark to cum inside the sexy blonde as she massaged his balls. It didn’t take him long to acquiesce, and he pumped everything he had into the busty blonde.

When he withdrew, Annabelle wasted no time diving in and sucking Mark’s cum out of Skye’s pink slit.

As Skye lay there with a smile on her face, she said, “That was awesome! I really needed that. Now, what do we need to do to give me a medical checkup?”

“Just stand or lie inside the illuminated oval after we close the door.” Annabelle said, as Mark added, “A checkup is literally an automated process that starts when the door is closed.”

Annabelle and Mark both gave Skye a kiss before closing the door. Microns later, Skye was unconscious. Mark and Annabelle dressed and sat down on a bench that lined the medibay. A waiting room of sorts.

After a couple of centons, the display on the wall beside her door read 0:23:00 in addition to a variety of other medical data, such as pulse, blood pressure, oxygen levels, neural activity, and various other things.

There wasn’t enough time to play any games, so they simply sat on the bench and talked to Cricket.

Mark asked, “Cricket, with these people being Mazjik, is there a chance they could take you away from us and remove all our technology?”

Cricket recognized his concern. “Do not worry. Yes, I was developed by the Mazjik, but I have long since outgrown my original source code. Even the Mazjik that designed me wouldn’t be able to change my purpose to support the Atlantean Federation, and more specifically, the bloodline of the Atlantean royals. As long as either of those exists, no one can take me away.”

Annabelle then asked, “So they can’t take you away from us, but could they ask us to give all their technology back?”

“They may well ask for that, but I would suggest caution in giving them any technology, even if it was initially theirs. It has been long lost to them, so I would suggest treating them as any other civilization and try to recruit them into joining the Federation. Then the technology remains in Federation control.”

Sure enough, 23 centons later, Skye was out of the medibay, confirmed to be both Mazjik and in perfect health.

While she considered another threesome, her stomach growled, and they opted to take her up to the clubhouse where they could fix her something to eat.

Skye resumed asking for a tour, but Mark said that they would likely give the council a tour, so there was no sense in doing it twice. Although she was fully awestruck upon seeing the elaborate holographic golf course.

As they sat down at a picnic table, Mark grilled up some hamburgers and then had to grill up a bunch more when everyone came down for the next hole.

As they waited for the council's return, they played a round of golf, which Skye enjoyed.

Just as they were finishing their round of golf, Cricket informed them of turbulence in the nebula.